What we actually ate

January 7, 2014

This week we spent $145 on food, quite a bit more than I was originally intending, but there were sales, people! I bought 40 lb of oranges for $20, 10 lbs of chicken thighs for $10, and 35 lb of ground beef for $70. Yup, $1.99/lb ground beef, yehaw! Lately I’ve been lucky to find it for $2.49/lb. The oranges should last a month, the chicken a couple weeks, and the ground beef a couple months.

In two hours I made 1 meal of meatloaf (for 18 people), 2 meals worth of taco meat, 46 hamburger patties, and 8 packages of precooked ground beef that I can use for stroganoff or Ethiopian sloppy joes or shepherd’s pie or Thai chard wraps or any number of other meals. I love having pre-cooked ground beef in the freezer– it’s such a time saver. And when I can get it for a great price, that makes it twice as nice. It really helps me to have benchmark prices to look for, so that I know clearly when it’s a good time to stock up.

Sometimes at Albertsons or Walmart when they overbuy and clearance. This time (and many other times) I find the best prices at a small locally owned chain called Pauls. But like I said, this was an unusually good price, once I see maybe 4-5 times a year lately. I try to walk past the beef and eat more beans when I can’t find it for $2.49/lb or less.

I also live in Missouri, though maybe not in the same spot you do. Mosers often has 80/20 ground beef for anywhere from $1.89-2.49 a pound. Schnucks and hyvee will sometimes do bone in chicken for 99 cents a pound . Schnucks also has good sale prices on pork, I’ve seen pork butt for 99 cents a pound, pork chops for 1.99 a pound , and pork sausage for 1.99 a pound

Meat has gotten so expensive around here that only eat once or twice a week with us putting TVP in everything else for protein.
Chicken was on sale for $2.69 a pound the other day! Made split pea soup the other day without any meat in it but the TVP and was quite good.

We are doing good eating from the pantry, I haven’t been to the store since Christmas time until today. Got $33.46 of food and $82.70 of non-food. Need to work on that part more. Craving the local’s restaurant’s fried chicken LOL.

I forgot to track the Jan 1 food. Remembered on Jan 2, could only remember what we’d had for dinner. The rest of it was obviously special stuff. LOL. Otherwise, we are eating like kings around here! I have also run into a couple of too-hard-to-resist sales (like spiral cut ham on clearance for $0.97/lb) so I don’t know if I’ll make my reduced budget goal. I will, however, have made great headway in my use-up-freezer-and-pantry-items goal.

Jan 3:
Breakfast: skipped
Lunch: chicken & veggie soup with asian dumplings – dumplings from freezer, chicken broth from fridge, veggies from veggie drawer, came out super tasty!
Snack: popcorn
Dinner: gnocchi alla sorrentina (red sauce with fresh mozzarella) with a baguette – gnocchi was in the pantry, canned tomatoes in the pantry, mozzarella in the fridge and nearing end of life so great to use up, baguette from freezer